


Zugzwang

by voodoochild



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 12:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2621846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas Shelby walks into a bar and meets Raina. (Does what it says on the tin. Also involves Crackpot HYDRA Theories, Shelbys being Shelbys, and Raina's pretty-dress fixation.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zugzwang

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in roughly 1940-ish. The events of Captain America: The First Avenger have not occurred yet, making Peggy still an operative, Phillips still a commander, and no Howling Commandos (but one of them does have a Brummie connection, so I've utilized them). In Peaky chronology, given that the dossier in the pilot gives Tommy's age as 29 in 1919, it'd make him around 50 years old here. Plenty of time to get into STRIKE's command and make Brigadier. No, I have no idea what STRIKE was doing in 1940-ish; for my purposes, they were being run by the Shelbys. As for Agents of SHIELD chronology, well. Just stick your fingers in your ears and pretend time-travel exists.
> 
> Title from the German for "compulsion to move", a well-known chess strategy when one player must make a move instead of passing or capturing. All chess terminology comes from Wikipedia, I'm awful at chess. I rather think it's apropos for Raina and Tommy, though.

He takes the meeting.

He takes the meeting because the old world has fallen, the trenches of France giving way to the new horror of all-night bombings. He takes the meeting because it's been 62 nights that the Germans have dropped shells on London, and because word's just come over the wires - Birmingham has been shelled. He takes the meeting because that's why Allied command has men like him; Brigadier Thomas Shelby, ostensibly commander of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, in actuality commander of STRIKE.

He takes the meeting because HYDRA is running them fucking ragged over most of Europe, because they shot four of his best operatives in a warehouse in Vienna last week, because the last dispatch from Madrid talked about rumors of a mysterious artifact that burned alive every man to touch it.

A stick that glowed like the sun, strange symbols covering it.

He'd put the word out among the ranks - and thus the HYDRA spies - that he was looking for any information on this mysterious object. Received a written note on stationary like no one's seen since before the war, smelling of roses and containing only a drawing of an iris and a date and address in London. His chemists have checked the note for poisons, the cryptographers have been over it for hidden messages, and it's exactly what it appears to be.

So he goes. Arthur throws a fucking fit because he only takes two operatives - a sniper and a man to case the location - and John throws a fucking fit because he's going at all, never mind that the price on his head from HYDRA is second only to Peggy Carter's (and that's because he's never snuck into a Nazi castle, the crazy bint), and Finn throws a fucking fit because Tommy won't take him. This is what he gets for bringing his brothers along into the SSR.

Polly does _not_ throw a fit, but that's mostly because she's been assigned to oversee the investigation of the artifact, and she's happy to get any information they can.

The address belongs to a tiny little bar in Highgate, miraculously untouched by the shelling. He leaves Falsworth sampling his way through the whiskey selection at the bar, and the sniper (he never remembers the kid's name, they're all fucking kids to him and anyway, he barely strings two words together) tucked into a dark corner. Orders an Irish whiskey that he only drinks because it's a sin to waste rationed booze, and waits for the HYDRA bloke to show.

The girl in the doorway is in her mid-twenties, at most, and is wearing a beautiful blue silk dress with beaded irises on it. 

Well, he can't accuse her of sublety. Jesus, every man in the place is looking right at her, and she simply minces her way over to his table, extending a slim hand to him once she reaches it.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Shelby. Or is that General Shelby?"

He gets to his feet - Polly would gut him for disrespecting a lady, HYDRA or no - and takes her hand. Shakes his head. "Thomas is fine, Miss-?"

She smiles a cat-grin, utterly charming, and hell, it's unsurprising his best men have been dropping like flies if this is what -HYDRA's got in its arsenal. "It's Miss Queen, at the moment."

"Oh, is it now?" he says, raising an eyebrow. She doesn't blink, and he raises her hand to his lips, kisses it gently. "Your Majesty."

"A man who knows how to treat a lady. I like it."

"I've known my share of queens."

She retrieves her hand, adjusts her black lace gloves with a measuring look. Takes the seat he gestures to, and bats her eyes at him. "Then it's Raina. Pleasure to meet you, Thomas - I was quite curious to set eyes on the man who nearly brought- Oh. My apologies. You haven't been there yet."

"Haven't been where?"

A considering look and small bite of her lip. "I shouldn't tell you. But well - you should visit France again. I'd imagine you'd find it much changed."

"Why the hell would I go back to France? I do what I do so I never _have_ to go back to France."

"You never know," she says, kittenishly. Teasing him just for the fun of it. "You might meet a girl."

He laughs, a little strained, because she's nearly half his age and he tries not to follow the example of other blokes. "You?"

"Oh no, I've only got 48 hours. I'm on a very strict schedule, sadly, or I really would see if the legends were true."

"That the Allies recruited gangsters? That they hire bad men to do their dirty work? Sad to tell you, it's true."

"Your history of bootlegging and bookmaking, while impressive, isn't what I was referring to. HYDRA tells ghost stories about you, Thomas. Will tell ghost stories of you long after you're gone."

"Is that meant to impress me?"

"It's a simple fact I'm relating." She looks away, changing tack, he can see the wheels of her mind turning, and he likes the trick of it. Innocent for those who aren't looking, deliberately visible to those who are. "You're looking for information on the Berserker Staff. Tell Polly that she should bury it deep in that church STRIKE found it in and not to let anyone else touch it. I don't think the continent would survive someone like - oh, say, *you* getting your hands on it. Or her, come to think of it."

"Why not?"

"A woman's rage is a terrible thing to behold. You'd level mountains if you took hold of the staff - she'd lay waste to half the world."

"And HYDRA doesn't want that? You've a funny way of showing it."

She tosses her hair, cloud of ringlets that smell of irises and berries. Sometimes he could wonder if she's a new kind of weapon - feminine, designed to wrap a man around her finger. He's certainly known his share of women like her. "We'd use her talents better than you are. She's a legend too."

He doesn't think it's a threat to Polly - those tend to be much more direct. A sniper in Cadiz. A team waiting in Morocco. There are many people who dislike STRIKE's second in command for being a woman old enough to be a grandmother. 

"Are you threatening my Aunt Polly, Raina?" he asks, deadly-calm. "Don't the legends tell you what happens when people do that?"

"Well," she purrs, shifts in her chair to cross her legs to the side. "Not yet they don't. But you need to be careful. Put the piece of the Staff back in that church in Madrid. You don't want to mess around with Asgardians, Thomas."

He's sure he would have come across the name before if they were important, and the face that he hasn't is what worries him. He checks the bar - Falsworth with a clear view of everyone, the sniper in the grey overcoat with a hand on the revolver at his hip and a bead on Raina - and flicks his gaze up to her calm, guileless brown eyes.

"Asgardians, huh? Somehow I get the sense you weren't supposed to tell me about them." She looks momentarily startled, covering it with a put-upon little sigh, and he runs his fingers around the brim of his hat. No blades. Sometimes he misses home. "Say we put the stick back. What's to stop HYDRA from getting their hands on it?"

She grins. "I was hoping you'd say that. I'm going to open my purse. It contains a wallet, my favorite lipstick, and a piece of paper. You may remove it." He does so, and verifies the contents of her purse. "On that paper are written two names - one is a HYDRA doctor who has experience with what Asgardian technology is capable of. Please don't try to take him into custody, no one you could send would live long enough to get near him. The other name you'll recognize as a member of STRIKE. He's also on our payroll. Send the second man to replace the Staff, then order him to Dr. Whitehall's address. That's all you have to do. You'll have gotten rid of a traitor, who will be rewarded as a traitor deserves."

He's ordered many men to their deaths, but it never gets any easier. If the traitor touches the Staff, he'll burn. Might be before or after HYDRA tortures him. Tommy doesn't know the man personally, but it doesn't matter.

"You know what the Staff does?" he asks Raina, swirling his whiskey idly.

She nods. "Intimately, Mr. Shelby."

"And your conscience is clear sending that man to be exposed to it?"

"It has to be done," she says bluntly. Well, she's no wilting flower, he'll give her that. She leans forward, speaks low and intent, emotion shining out of her eyes. "Besides, that man will one day find a little girl on the streets of New York, and he'll teach her cruelty. He'll give her power. You wouldn't deny me that, would you?'

It takes everything he has not to recoil. She's certainly on the wrong side of madness, but everything she's told him says she's more than that. 

"What the fuck are you?"

She laughs, pretty and light and head-turning. Quite a trick. 

"Me? I'm a pawn. Hopefully on my way to queening."

It takes him a moment to get the reference. "Haven't played too much chess, but that's rare, isn't it?"

"Says the pawn turned rook. Protect your house, Brigadier. Protect your queen. You have a larger role to play than you'd like."

Could be another threat to him and Polly. Could be a reference to his wife - who knows nothing of this life, believes him to be an intelligence officer. Could be many things. He lets her go - waves off the sniper and Falsworth - and she exits in a cloud of iris-scent. The paper with the two names is warm in his hand, and he lingers a moment more before deciding to follow her instructions.

"Falsworth, find me Medic Boucher. STRIKE has a mission for him."

**Author's Note:**

> The STRIKE medic/secret HYDRA traitor is Skye's Father. As he has no name in canon, I've dubbed him "Boucher", as in, the French for "butcher", since he's a bit sensitive being called it. Since we have no idea how old he really is, or how he came by his powers, this is a theory.
> 
> The sniper might be another Howling Commando. Just saying.


End file.
